Promoting evidence-based research | Photo credit: Evgeny Gromov
Indian universities produce an ocean of research every year, more than five million postgraduate dissertations, including nearly two lakh PhDs. Yet much of this work remains unseen, unread and unused. Despite annual investments of nearly ₹50,000 crore in higher education, the link between academic research and India’s real development challenges remains weak. We need a ‘vikas manthan’ – a deliberate movement of ideas for development, which seeks to bridge this gap by turning theses into engines of policy innovation.
Public universities are generously funded, but their output rarely influences governance or public policy. Because taxpayers support both the university system and the government apparatus, connecting these two streams should be a national priority.
The June 2025 UGC-NET results illustrate the potential and the gap. About 1.2 lakh candidates qualified, but barely 5,000 earned the Junior Research Fellowship to pursue doctoral work. The rest, a vast pool of “scholars in waiting,” must provide funding. What if ministries and universities designed the topics of their dissertations together, so that each dissertation became a micro-policy laboratory? It would not replace basic research, but complement it with applied imagination, anchored in real-world relevance. Students would be given a purpose; governments would gain a steady pipeline of evidence-based insights.
This bridge exists worldwide between academia and government. In Britain, the Policy Fellowships program places university researchers in ministries for six to 18 months to jointly develop evidence for new regulations. This is a high-end commitment costing £180,000-£280,000 per fellow and 40-45 fellows per year. The European Union’s Horizon Europe program operates with a budget of €95.5 billion (2021-2027), requiring all publicly funded projects to focus on defined social missions. Both demonstrate how public investments in research can directly serve public priorities.
The Indian model must be different: high volume, low cost and scalable. The ICSSR’s IMPRESS program (2018-21) funded 1,500 research projects with grants of ₹20-25 lakh each, demonstrating feasibility. But Vikas Manthan proposes to go further: micro-leveraged connections between students and government services, at a fraction of that cost. If a student addresses a department’s concern, modest funding from that department should follow. It could be something like a grant of ₹40,000-₹60,000 per thesis and an annual prize for the best theses. Then we will have thousands of young researchers solving current problems, from climate adaptation to skills and rural livelihoods.
Four pillars
Such a framework would rest on four pillars:
Thematic connections: Each foreign ministry and central ministry could announce annual research themes such as climate resilience, water management, digital inclusion, rural infrastructure, and invite universities to allocate some of the master’s and doctoral work.
Joint supervision and co-financing: Each thesis could have two mentors: a faculty guide and a department advisor, combining academic rigor with policy relevance.
Open access and recognition: A national repository should archive all accepted dissertations, tagged by policy domain. Faculties and universities whose work demonstrably shapes public programs deserve recognition and performance grants.
Guaranteeing autonomy: Research must remain critical and independent. An oversight mechanism must protect scientists’ right to publish findings, even if they challenge official positions.
For students, this approach offers mentorship and a social purpose. For governments, it delivers grassroots intelligence and youth engagement without creating new bureaucracies. The downside – the occasional weak thesis – is trivial compared to the potential social return on modest investments.
India’s demographic dividend is not just about numbers; it’s about ideas waiting to be exploited. Vikas Manthan renews the ancient dharma of knowledge – Vidyã Dånanam – and transforms research into national tapasya. By turning dissertations into actionable insights, we can ensure that the intellectual energy of our universities directly drives national progress towards Viksit Bharat. The responsibility now lies with the government – to fund universities, not just to teach and publish, but to help govern wisely and intelligently.
The writer is a former deputy director of Nabard. Opinions are personal
Published on October 24, 2025
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